Many movements carried out by an athlete during athletic activity may be considered to be somewhat symmetric in nature, in that the actions are carried out in a similar manner by both the left and right sides of the athlete. For example, actions such as running, skating, cycling, or paddling a kayak in a straight line generally entail similar, if mirrored, motions by the left and right sides of the athlete, with substantially the same range of movement and force generated by each side of the athlete with each movement.
Numerous sports however include motions that can be considered to be highly asymmetric in their execution as they may, for example, be performed or controlled mainly, or only, by a dominant hand of the athlete and/or be performed in a strictly asymmetrical manner. For example, when shooting, an ice hockey player will generally only strike the puck with either a left-handed swing or a right-handed swing, a golfer will generally only perform a swing as either a left-handed swing or a right-handed swing, the majority of baseball batters will generally only swing the bat as either a left-handed swing or a right-handed swing, a racquet sport player will generally only hold and/or control their racquet with their dominant arm, speed skaters tend to swing only one arm when circling a track, a soccer player often favors one foot over the other when striking the ball, football punters and kickers generally only strike the ball with their dominant foot, and football quarterbacks and baseball and softball pitchers generally only throw with their dominant arm. Examples of asymmetric athletic movements can be seen in FIGS. 1A-1D.
For all these asymmetric athletic movements and activities the garments traditionally worn by the athlete, which are generally manufactured symmetrically (i.e., with the same materials, stitching, and design on both the left and right side), can restrict or otherwise working against the asymmetric movement of the wearer. For example, due to their symmetric construction, shirts worn by an ice hockey player may not stretch and deform in a manner optimal to the support of a repeated striking of the puck by either a left-handed or right-handed player. In fact, by falling to account for the specific repeated movements of an athlete carrying out an asymmetric-type motion, traditional garments may, in fact, resist the motion of the wearer (e.g., by providing resistance to the specific stretching of the garment produced by the asymmetric motion) and reduce the efficiency of the motion. For ice hockey and golf, for example, by acting against either or both of the backswing and forward swing of the motion (by inhibiting the range of the swing and/or partially counteracting the force generated by the swing) this resistance applied by the shirt could have a noticeable effect on the power and accuracy of the athlete's swing and shot. By failing to account for a repeated stretching or deformation of the garment in a particular direction, symmetrically manufactured garments may also be prone to wearing and ultimately tearing or otherwise failing at or near the location of the repeated stretch/deformation.